Remember the Danish Cartoon Riots?

[Barry]

They started with condemnations and snowballed from there. I suspect the same thing is about to happen.

This gem was from an AFP newswire - apparently unaware of the irony:

"Indian authorities in Kashmir have seized newspapers carrying the story of the Pope's suggestion that Islam may encourage violence, fearing violence from Muslims."

A longer version:

India seizes papers with pope's Islam criticism Thu Sep 14, 5:27 AM ET

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - Police in Indian Kashmir seized newspapers carrying Pope Benedict XVI's strong criticisms of Islam and jihad, fearing a Muslim backlash in the flashpoint area.

"We've seized copies of (Indian) newspapers carrying the pope's remarks. It has been done to prevent any tension here," a police officer said.

Copies of the Indian dailies were impounded at Srinagar's high-security airport when they arrived from New Delhi, he said on Thursday.

The pontiff hit out at Islam and the concept of holy war or jihad in a speech in Germany on Tuesday, citing a 14th-century Christian emperor who said the Prophet Mohammed had brought the world "evil and inhuman" things.

The Muslim league, a Kashmiri separatist group, called for a protest Friday over the pope's comments.

"Whatever has been said against our Prophet is unbearable," the group's chief Masarat Alam said. "It should be condemned by all."

Kashmir witnessed a wave of protests after a newspaper in Denmark published cartoons of Mohammed in September 2005 that were also reproduced elsewhere, mainly in Europe, triggering widespread demonstrations around the world.

Indian Kashmir is in the grip of a Muslim insurgency against New Delhi's rule that has left more than 44,000 people dead since 1989.

[Ralph]

Guess India still has a way to go to have a truly free press.

[pizza]

Maybe the ultimate irony:

"Anyone who describes Islam as an intolerant religion encourages violence" says Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,213930,00.html

[Barry]

Muslims express fury over pope's remarks
By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer
Sept. 15, 2006

ANKARA, Turkey - Muslims around the world expressed outrage Friday over Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam, with Turkey's ruling party accusing him of trying to revive the spirit of the Crusades and scores taking to the streets in protest.

Pakistan's parliament unanimously condemned the pope and the Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret over the remarks.

The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks — made in Germany on Tuesday during an address at a university — to be offensive.

Benedict quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

Benedict did not explicitly agree with the statement nor repudiate it.

The comments raised tensions ahead of his planned visit to Turkey in November — his first pilgrimage to a Muslim country.

Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party, said Benedict's remarks were either "the result of pitiful ignorance" about Islam and its prophet, or a deliberate distortion.

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world," Kapusuz was quoted as saying by the state-owned Anatolia news agency. "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."

"Benedict, the author of such unfortunate and insolent remarks, is going down in history for his words," he said. "He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as (Adolf) Hitler and (Benito) Mussolini."

Turkey's staunchly secular opposition party also demanded that Benedict apologize to Muslims before his visit.

"The pope has thrown gasoline onto the fire ... in a world where the risk of a clash between religions is high," said Haluk Koc, deputy head of the Republican People's Party, as a small group of protesters left a black wreath in front of the Vatican's embassy in Ankara.

Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced the remarks and demanded the pope personally apologize.

"We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology — not through his officials — to Muslims for this false reading (of Islam)," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshippers.

After Benedict returned to Italy on Thursday, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said, "It certainly wasn't the intention of the pope to carry out a deep examination of jihad (holy war) and on Muslim thought on it, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers."

Lombardi insisted the pope respects Islam. Benedict wants to "cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, obviously also toward Islam," he said.

Turkey's top Islamic cleric, Ali Bardakoglu, said Lombardi's comments were not enough. "The pope himself should stand at the dais and say 'I take it all back, I was misunderstood' and apologize in order to contribute to world peace," he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended Benedict's remarks, saying Muslims had "misunderstood" his message.

She told the mass-circulation Bild daily that the German-born pontiff was making "an invitation to dialogue between religions" and that she endorsed his message.

"What Benedict XVI makes clear is a decisive and uncompromising rejection of any use of violence in the name of religion," Merkel said.

The pope on Friday appointed Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, a French prelate with experience in the Muslim world, as the Vatican's new foreign minister.

But anger still swept across the Muslim world, with Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopting a resolution condemning the pope for making what it called "derogatory" comments about Islam and the Foreign Ministry summoning the Vatican ambassador.

The pope's words were "deeply disturbing for Muslims all over the world, and had caused great hurt and anguish," the Foreign Ministry said.

The Vatican's envoy "regretted the hurt caused to Muslims and said that the media had totally misconstrued certain historical quotes that the Pope used in his lecture," the statement said.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of the Islamic Hamas group, said the pontiff had offended Muslims everywhere and called on him to reconsider his statement. He said there would be organized protests later in the day "to express Palestinian anger."

In Iraq's Shiite Muslim-stronghold of Kufa, Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi criticized the pope during Friday prayers, saying his remarks were a second assault on Islam.

"Last year and in the same month the Danish cartoon assaulted Islam," he said, referring to a Danish newspaper's publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which triggered outrage in the Muslim world.

Indonesia, which has more Muslims than any other in the world, had no immediate response to the pope's comments, but religious groups were quick to protest, condemning the words as insensitive and damaging.

"A respected religious leader like the pope should not say such things, especially as nations across the globe are struggling to find ways to bridge differences between faiths and build understanding," said Ma'ruf Amin, a member of Indonesia Council of Clerics, the country's highest Islamic body.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organization, also expressed disappointment but urged calm.

The head of Britain's largest Muslim body said it was disturbed by the pope's use of a 14th century passage. The Muslim Council, which represents 400 groups in Britain, said the emperor's views were "ill-informed and frankly bigoted."

"One would expect a religious leader such as the pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations between the followers of Islam and Catholicism," said Muhammad Abdul Bari, the council's secretary-general.

Elsewhere, Syria's top Sunni Muslim religious authority, Sheik Ahmad Badereddine Hassoun, sent a letter to the pope that he feared the comments would worsen interfaith relations.

Later, he delivered a scathing sermon in which he denounced the remarks. "We have heard about your extremism and hate for Arabs and Muslims. Now that you have dropped the mask from your face we see its ugliness and extremist nature," he said.

In Cairo, Egypt, about 100 demonstrators gathered in an anti-Vatican protest outside the al-Azhar mosque, chanting "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down with the pope!"

Dozens of lawyers in Indian-controlled Kashmir also protested, while two separatist leaders were placed under house arrest as they were planning to lead demonstrations.

Benedict, who has made the fight against growing secularism in Western society a theme of his pontificate, is expected to visit Turkey in late November. He was invited by the staunchly secularist Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who said the invitation was part of an effort to strengthen dialogue between religions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I trust the pope won't issue an apology and will be disappointed if he does. Why should the rest of the world have to walk on egg shells becuase the Islamic world has no sense of proportion or irony?

[rogch]

Well, i would say they have a better reason for being upset this time. The pope is more important than a small Danish newspaper and the moslem extremists have stills some way to go before they have killed as many people as the catholic church. But let us hope that the reactions are more sensible this time than during the cartoon-row, that mobs don't attack a number of people and institutions just because they are from catholic countries. But it is reason to fear that the situation will be more tense. As with the cartoons, the anger among moslems is not only about one partiular episode.

Having said that, there is every reason to be angry at the Vatican and the pope. Not only because of history, they continue to play a very destructive role in the world.

[mourningstar]

Maybe the ultimate irony:

"Anyone who describes Islam as an intolerant religion encourages violence" says Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,213930,00.html

i don't find that ironic

what the pope said: that is ironic!, as if muslims were the only one who have an aggresive backlash, remembers me of a thing montesquieu once said

"I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ."

there is no difference between their God Allah and the Christian; God, it's just a mere polarisation..

[Agnes Selby]

Maybe the ultimate irony:

"Anyone who describes Islam as an intolerant religion encourages violence" says Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,213930,00.html

--------

This statement proves beyond any reasonable doubt
how peaceful Islam really is. It is the best quote I have read.
--------------------------

[Modernistfan]

The Pope's statement is the stupidest and most backward comment I have ever heard from a public figure since the original Supreme Court decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, in which Chief Justice Burger reached all the way back to the Code of Justinian to justify state-imposed restrictions on homosexual behavior by consenting adults. The Code of Justinian was notorious for its making Jews and Arians (a Christian sect that could best be equated to present-day Unitarians) second-class citizens, reversing several hundred years of Roman law precedent that all free-born male residents of the Roman Empire, of whatever religion, were entitled to all the privileges of citizenship. (Yes, I am aware that women and slaves were not entitled to the privileges of citizenship even under the more liberal law that the Code of Justinian replaced, but that's the way it was back then, unfortunately.)

Even the Supreme Court couldn't eventually countenance that reasoning and reversed themselves in Lawrence & Garner v. Texas in 2003.

[Barry]

The year is 2006. Christian brutality and crusading may have been a horrible problem of epic proportion for centuries. But currently, so much as writing a book lampooning Islam leads to a death sentence from a high-ranking Muslim official while printing a cartoon leads to violent riots and not a few deaths.

The Pope's statement can be argued about in a civil manner; but at some point, the response becomes absurd. Saying the Pope is on par with Hitler and Musselini? Give me a break. And we all know eventually people will die over this.

If anyone is interested in viewing the kind of garbage that is printed almost daily in government-sanctioned newspapers in Muslim countries, it's not that hard to find on the net. The ADL's website has a page on it. They depict Jews in a way (both in cartoon and print) that would make Goebbels proud, then go nuts over the slightist bit of parody related to Islam. If the Jews (and the west in general) behaved like many of the world's Muslims do over such trivial things, the violence around the world would escalate ten-fold.

[Barry]

Here is another doozy of a quote today from an Iraqi cleric:

"The pope and Vatican proved to be Zionists and that they are far from Christianity, which does not differ from Islam. Both religions call for forgiveness, love and brotherhood," Shiite cleric Sheik Abdul-Kareem al-Ghazi said during a sermon in Iraq's second-largest city, Basra.

[Barry]

The Pope is to be applauded if this analysis is correct;
and I don't know how people who rail against the U.S. for being too aggressive could disagree with the Pope's stand:

Yahoo!
Analysis: Pope's `jihad' remarks a sign
By BRIAN MURPHY, AP Religion Writer
2 hours, 58 minutes ago

Pope Benedict XVI's comments on religious radicalism are another sign of his intention to bring his voice into one of the world's most critical showdowns: Islam's internal struggles between moderates and extremists.

The remarks — tucked into an address at a German university where he formerly taught theology — were interpreted by many experts in interfaith relations as a signal that the Vatican is staking a new and more demanding stance for its dealings with the Muslim world.

Benedict, they say, appears to increasingly view the West's confrontation with radical Islam as a fateful moment in history that demands the Vatican's moral authority — just as his predecessor, John Paul II, reshaped the dimensions of the papacy by openly taking sides in the Cold War.

The risk for the Vatican is whether it will be perceived in the Muslim world as part of a broader Western cultural and political campaign against Islam.

"We have seen a hard line from this pope," said Ali El-Samman, president of the interfaith committee for Egypt's High Islamic Council. "It's a disappointment for many Muslims. But just because we are disappointed in a pope doesn't mean we are against all Christians."

The Vatican said Benedict did not intend the remarks to be offensive and sought to draw attention to the incompatibility of faith and violence.

The pope quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th-century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

Benedict, who is supposed to visit Turkey this fall in his first trip to a Muslim nation, did not explicitly agree with the words nor did he repudiate them.

In the backlash, some of the more subtle — yet potentially far-reaching — references have been overshadowed.

The speech suggested deep dismay over the current conditions of Christians in the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world, said John Voll, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington.

"This reflects the intention of Pope Benedict to distinguish himself from his predecessor on his approach to interfaith dialogue," said Voll. "And by this, it means more reciprocity."

Voll said the pope may increasingly instruct Vatican envoys to stress issues of forced conversions of Christians and limits on Christian rights and worship.

"It's the next step after John Paul began opening doors" with historic pilgrimages to Muslim nations, including a visit to a Syrian mosque in 2001, Voll said.

As John Paul's chief watchdog on Roman Catholic doctrine, Benedict — then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — had little role in shaping the Vatican's contact with Islam and other faiths.

Some experts say Benedit's theological scholarship gives him an affinity for Orthodox churches and Judaism because of many shared traditions and holy texts, but leaves him less equipped to deal with Islam at a time when suspicions dominate relations between the West and Muslim world.

The speech, some say, shows the pontiff intends to carry on with his strong defense of the values of the Christian West rather than compromise for the sake of building bonds with Islam.

"They went to the speech expecting to meet Pope Benedict, but instead they met Professor Ratzinger," said the Rev. Khalil Samir, a Vatican envoy for interfaith links in Lebanon.

In July 2005, about two months after assuming the papacy, Benedict was asked if he considered Islam a religion of peace. He said: "Certainly there are elements that favor peace. It also has other elements."

The Rev. Robert Taft, a specialist in Islamic affairs at Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute, said it was unlikely the pope miscalculated how some Muslims would receive his speech.

"The message he is sending is very, very clear," Taft said. "Violence in the name of faith is never acceptable in any religion and that (the pope) considers it his duty to challenge Islam and anyone else on this."

[Daisy]

The year is 2006. Christian brutality and crusading may have been a horrible problem of epic proportion for centuries. But currently, so much as writing a book lampooning Islam leads to a death sentence from a high-ranking Muslim official while printing a cartoon leads to violent riots and not a few deaths.

The Pope's statement can be argued about in a civil manner; but at some point, the response becomes absurd. Saying the Pope is on par with Hitler and Musselini? Give me a break. And we all know eventually people will die over this.

If anyone is interested in viewing the kind of garbage that is printed almost daily in government-sanctioned newspapers in Muslim countries, it's not that hard to find on the net. The ADL's website has a page on it. They depict Jews in a way (both in cartoon and print) that would make Goebbels proud, then go nuts over the slightist bit of parody related to Islam. If the Jews (and the west in general) behaved like many of the world's Muslims do over such trivial things, the violence around the world would escalate ten-fold.

It seems to me that by having violent riots as they tend to do over whenever they are offended, it would certainly give credence to the writings quoted by the Pope. I agree, he should not apologize when no one apologizes to the insults hurled regularly at Christians and Jews, not the least by Moslems. They are as hypocritical as anyone else, and they just don't deserve the pass they constantly are given.

[Corlyss_D]

September 16, 2006
West Bank Churches Attacked After Pope Remarks
By REUTERS

Filed at 8:23 a.m. ET

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Unknown assailants threw fire bombs on Saturday at two churches in the West Bank city of Nablus, following a day of Palestinian protests against comments Pope Benedict made about Islam. No one was hurt.

Jabi Saadeh, a member of the Anglican Church in the city, said about four or five masked men in a white car threw several fire bombs at the wall of the church, without causing damage.

A similar attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Nablus set ablaze one of its walls, leaving part of it charred. George Awad, head of the Greek Orthodox church, denounced what he called ``a childish act.''*

In a speech in Germany on Tuesday, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. It was unclear whether the church attacks were connected to his remarks.

The Pontiff apologized on Saturday for his comments, which sparked outrage across the Arab world.

Thousands of Palestinians marched in Gaza on Friday to protest his remarks. A youth center run by the Greek Orthodox church in Gaza was slightly damaged by an explosion, although it was unclear whether it was related to the Pope's remarks.

Salem Salama, the head of Muslim clerics in the Palestinian territories, urged Palestinians to protect and respect Christians and also called on Muslim countries not to allow the Pope to visit in order to ensure his safety.

``We urge our nations and our Muslim and Arab countries not to receive the Pope so that he does not make any comments that may ignite fire and in order to avoid any assault on him that may ignite a religious war,'' Salama said in Gaza.

Senior officials from the Palestinian government, which has been led by the Islamic Hamas group after it won a January parliamentary election, and other local leaders gathered at the scene of the Nablus attacks and offered words of condolence.

``We condemn this irresponsible attack and we believe that these acts will not affect the eternal unity of the Palestinian community,'' Nablus mayor and Hamas leader Adli Yaaish said.

Most of the some 3.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip identify themselves as Muslim, while up to 2 percent are Christian. Attacks between members of the communities are rare.

``We are brothers and sisters during good and bad times in Palestine and tolerance is the common oxygen for people here -- Christians and Muslims,'' Awad said.
link

Unless your child is Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris, how could anyone dismiss firebombing as "childish?" Does this make it less dangerous our threatening? More importantly, how can people who liken firebombing to schoolyard pranks ever come to grips with the criminals attempting to kill them?

[lmpower]

Well this behaviour certainly refutes the notion that Islam is violent.

[paulb]

Having said that, there is every reason to be angry at the Vatican and the pope. Not only because of history, they continue to play a very destructive role in the world.

Would you say about as destructive as the anger and violence being perpetrated upon the world by all the dozens of arabic/islamic militant groups and their fascist ideologies?

You atheists sure have some perverted views.

[Fugu]

paulb, the Crusades are always a reminder. Please do your history. Also, refer to the fact Bush used the terminology when he first invaded Afghanistan. We are in a situation where such references clearly elicit an angry and violent response.

[pizza]

The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

Mujahideen's Army threatens Pope with suicide attack
george conger and JPost staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 16, 2006

As security was beefed up around Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday night, the Mujahideen's Army movement in Iraq threatened to carry out a suicide attack against the Pope in revenge for his comments about Islam and jihad.

On a website used by rebel movements in Iraq, a message posted by the Mujahideen's Army said members of the organization would "smash the crosses in the house of the dog from Rome."

European religious and political leaders have backed the Pope in the wake of the Muslim protests over his academic lecture at Regensburg University Tuesday, saying the pope's words had been misinterpreted.

"Rather than criticizing Islam, the pope is actually offering it a helping hand by suggesting that it do away with the cycle of violence," Fr. Samir K. Samir, SJ one of the Vatican's leading experts on Islam wrote in the Catholic newspaper Asia News.

The pope's academic lecture "was trying to show how Western society-including the Church-has become secularized by removing from the concept of Reason its spiritual dimension and origins which are in God," Fr. Samir stated.

While European Muslims were quick to attack the pope's words, the continent's political leaders declined to follow. "Whoever criticizes the pope misunderstood the aim of his speech," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with the German newspaper, Bild.

"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions," she said on Friday. Benedict "expressly spoke in favor of this dialogue, which is something I also support and consider urgent and necessary." "What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion," Merkel noted.

This is a "storm in a tea cup" the former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey told The Jerusalem Post. "Anything Pope Benedict says should be weighed carefully. He is not given to slight or idle remarks," he added, dismissing Muslim charges the Pope had "rubbished" Islam.

"If he quoted something said 600 years ago, we should not assume that this represents the Pope's beliefs about Islam today," he said.

Lord Carey, who chairs the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East has long been active in Christian-Muslim dialogue, and in 2002 signed an accord in Alexandria with the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo and the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel calling for an end to violence, suicide bombings and a resumption of the peace process in the Middle East.

"Muslims, as well as Christians, must learn to enter into dialogue without crying 'foul'," Lord Carey said. "We live in perilous times, and we must not only separate religion from violence but also not give religious legitimacy to violence in any shape or form." Italian European parliament vice president Mario Mauro condemned as "monstrous" the manipulation of the pope's remarks by Islamic leaders which he claimed were used to "hit out at Christians and the West."

The controversy was evidence of the "gravity of the danger we are facing" he told the ANSA press agency on September 15, and urged Europeans to "defend reason" against the onslaught of "Islamist-Nazi ideology that permeates fundamentalist thought."

The Western press was divided over the pope's remarks. The New York Times editorialized on Saturday that the pope must give a "deep and persuasive" apology for his remarks as "the world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.

However, the Guardian commented that the pope was "innocent of the charges of stirring up hatred against Islam being made against him."

"It is difficult to believe that those making the claims," the Guardian's religious affairs correspondent, Stephen Bates, noted, "can possibly have read the remarks in full or in their proper context." Muslim concerns were "exaggerated and misplaced," Fr. Samir, a professor at the Universit Saint Joseph in Beirut, the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, and the Centre de Th ologie S vres in Paris, wrote.

"Initial reactions in the Muslim world show that the Pope was misunderstood," he said, and some "comments made by Western Muslims were superficial and fed the circus-like criticism" of "emotional outbursts in response to hearsay."

Benedict's quote from the Koran, "There is no compulsion in religion," (Sura 2,256), was offered in the context of a medieval dialogue between a Byzantine emperor and a Persian Muslim.

"The Holy Father chose this text because it contained a 'key sentence' in which the Emperor criticizes the Muslim for Islam's violence as exemplified by the command to spread the faith by the sword," Fr. Samir said.

However, the argument being proffered by the pope was that "anyone who engages in violence ceases being a believer; anyone, Christian or Muslim, who goes along with violence goes against Reason and God, who is the source of Reason," he stated.

"Sadly, some people cannot avoid seeing the conflict between the West and Islam except in political terms. Since the Pope is a Westerner, it must logically follow that he is 'against' us. And having failed to understand what the pope says, all that they can say is that he criticized jihad and for this reason he certainly 'must' be an enemy," Fr. Samir said.

The tragedy in this controversy, Fr. Samir suggested was that "only by listening to the Pope's suggestions, and those of a few Muslim intellectuals, can Islam's chances for renewal become real."

"It is high time that Islam deal with modernity; not to be swallowed up by it, but rather to take what good it has to offer and improve on it," he said.

The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/

[paulb]

Lets admit it, Islam is in her death throes. Read Ishrads Munji's book The Trouble with Islam TODAY.
Though Miss Munji points out ways muslims.....no not really. Ishrad does not give much pointers for islamics to deal with their issues. What she does emphasize over and over with cases in proof , is how islam has failed the very people that believe in this "religion". What i gather from the book is how islam , or the leaders that is, have manipulated and coerced arabs over the centuries , to believe in false understandings. All these lies and repressions fostered by the power thirsty religious leaders have now come back to haunt the modern muslim. Their shadow is so great and extremely difficult , painful to carry, that they PROJECT THEIR DARK SIDE ONTO THE WESTERN WORLD, PRIMIARILY THE USA.

The gigantic kettle is at a full rolling boil. Look out its hot.

[Fugu]

Lets admit it, Islam is in her death throes.

That's just plain ignorant. Do you have ANY concept of what happens around the world outside of Louisiana or Mississippi?

[BWV 1080]

No I think Paul is right. It will take a few generations and we won't live to see it but Islam seems to be proving itself too brittle to adapt to modernity. Its much more suseptibile to falsification than other religions (its more like Scientology or Mormonism where one guy made the whole thing up) and once the inevitable disillusionment sets in, the whole thing will likely crumble (much like militant Calvinism did in the West)

[Fugu]

Islam is also one of the most evangelistic religions in the world. It won't go anywhere because its traditions are firmly based. Now, my hope would be that radical Islam will die out, but that isn't likely to happen with the climate we find ourselves in exacerbated by the likes of George Bush. He alone has created more terrorists by his actions. Prior to 9-11 Al Qaeda was 2 or 3,000, now it is in the 10s of thousands.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how ... y_in_iraq/

[mourningstar]

Funny how the thing is turned upside down. It's almost like the Muslims started this, .. you know, Islam and Christianity are mucht the same, only Islam tend to be more conservative with their beliefs. i dont seem why that could be a problem, quoting stupid muslims is!

you know what a problem is, The Pope, a well eduacted man could really oversea his acts,

this whole religion is just plain stupid.

[pizza]

Funny how the thing is turned upside down. It's almost like the Muslims started this, ..

They did.

The Pope, as anyone else, should be able to state his opinion on any subject whatsoever without a particular religious segment of the world's population starting a riot over it.

[paulb]

Funny how the thing is turned upside down. It's almost like the Muslims started this, ..

They did.

The Pope, as anyone else, should be able to state his opinion on any subject whatsoever without a particular religious segment of the world's population starting a riot over it.

Yes. Did you see how Maddona in her latest stage act where she depicts herself as "A christ" on A cross. She says her purpose is to bring attention to the massacrues in Sudan. I hope she realizes there are others ways, artistic, to go about it than bringing in Jesus Christ. But did you see the christians in europe, where the stage took place, in Italy just miles from the Vatican? Nor did the christians here in the US take to the streets in riots.
How about the punk video recently where this guy depicts christ as a pimp, a drunk, gay, a thief and all other degrading images of what Christ was NOT.
"oh its justa satire on the christian church". Again there are other ways to point out christianity's many failures w/o resorting to such antics.
Did you see the christians take to the streets in violence? Some yes, but the bands music can still be purchased in stores.
See we have freedom.
The pope clearly knows the errors and crimes of the church throughout history. His point in the statement was that we, ie all religions, should learn from its past errors , and begin to embrace communication and tolerance.
But what did the muslims do? Over react with childish emotion outburst. And this fuels more energy into the militant sectors of islam.

I recently had a discussion with a friend who knows religious history, pointed out how Mohammed, AFTER HIS REVELATION, had married many wives, which is the custom. One of his wives , so the story goes, (have not had a chance to research), was taken in promise at age 6. Well Mohammed felt she was too young to consummate the vows so he waited...til she was 9 yrs of age.
My friend pointed out its a disgraceful thing to be a pedophile, but especially if you are a founder of a religion, or lets a main pillar of a faith.
Yeah I know the catholic church has issues with pedophilia.
But lets focus on Mohammed. Does anyone know about this story on Mohammed?

[mourningstar]

Funny how the thing is turned upside down. It's almost like the Muslims started this, ..

They did.

The Pope, as anyone else, should be able to state his opinion on any subject whatsoever without a particular religious segment of the world's population starting a riot over it.

wrong. The Pope is a prominent world figure, imagine what could happen if he says whatever he chooses to because of the fact, that there should be no obligations and no consequences,. if only things were that easy

and things aren't, if he is willing to say remarks about the Islam, let him say it, but shouldnt he be NOT accountable for his acts?

and thats the whole thing, he is not a GOD. His actions will have Consequence, and a well eduacated world figure should be aware of that

alot of poor islams don't

[mourningstar]

Funny how the thing is turned upside down. It's almost like the Muslims started this, ..

They did.

The Pope, as anyone else, should be able to state his opinion on any subject whatsoever without a particular religious segment of the world's population starting a riot over it.

Yes. Did you see how Maddona in her latest stage act where she depicts herself as "A christ" on A cross. She says her purpose is to bring attention to the massacrues in Sudan. I hope she realizes there are others ways, artistic, to go about it than bringing in Jesus Christ. But did you see the christians in europe, where the stage took place, in Italy just miles from the Vatican? Nor did the christians here in the US take to the streets in riots.
How about the punk video recently where this guy depicts christ as a pimp, a drunk, gay, a thief and all other degrading images of what Christ was NOT.
"oh its justa satire on the christian church". Again there are other ways to point out christianity's many failures w/o resorting to such antics.
Did you see the christians take to the streets in violence? Some yes, but the bands music can still be purchased in stores.
See we have freedom.
The pope clearly knows the errors and crimes of the church throughout history. His point in the statement was that we, ie all religions, should learn from its past errors , and begin to embrace communication and tolerance.
But what did the muslims do? Over react with childish emotion outburst. And this fuels more energy into the militant sectors of islam.

I recently had a discussion with a friend who knows religious history, pointed out how Mohammed, AFTER HIS REVELATION, had married many wives, which is the custom. One of his wives , so the story goes, (have not had a chance to research), was taken in promise at age 6. Well Mohammed felt she was too young to consummate the vows so he waited...til she was 9 yrs of age.
My friend pointed out its a disgraceful thing to be a pedophile, but especially if you are a founder of a religion, or lets a main pillar of a faith.
Yeah I know the catholic church has issues with pedophilia.
But lets focus on Mohammed. Does anyone know about this story on Mohammed?

Yes. Did you see how Maddona in her latest stage act where she depicts herself as "A christ" on A cross. She says her purpose is to bring attention to the massacrues in Sudan. I hope she realizes there are others ways, artistic, to go about it than bringing in Jesus Christ. But did you see the christians in europe, where the stage took place, in Italy just miles from the Vatican? Nor did the christians here in the US take to the streets in riots.
How about the punk video recently where this guy depicts christ as a pimp, a drunk, gay, a thief and all other degrading images of what Christ was NOT.
"oh its justa satire on the christian church". Again there are other ways to point out christianity's many failures w/o resorting to such antics.
Did you see the christians take to the streets in violence? Some yes, but the bands music can still be purchased in stores.

Those western people got lifes and jobs and obligations, they dont care

Muslims, those who riot, don't..

[pizza]

Funny how the thing is turned upside down. It's almost like the Muslims started this, ..

They did.

The Pope, as anyone else, should be able to state his opinion on any subject whatsoever without a particular religious segment of the world's population starting a riot over it.

wrong. The Pope is a prominent world figure, imagine what could happen if he says whatever he chooses to because of the fact, that there should be no obligations and no consequences,. if only things were that easy

and things aren't, if he is willing to say remarks about the Islam, let him say it, but shouldnt he be NOT accountable for his acts?

and thats the whole thing, he is not a GOD. His actions will have Consequence, and a well eduacated world figure should be aware of that

alot of poor islams don't

That's pure nonsense. The consequences of anything that's perceived by many Muslims to be the least bit insulting is rioting, death and destruction. You may think that's a proper consequence for an insult, but it isn't and most civilized people don't think it is either. It has nothing to do with rich or poor, educated or ignorant; it's a matter of self-respect and self-control, of which these people have very little. It's time for them to engage in serious self-examination and to stop blaming the rest of the world for their self-inflicted problems.

[Donald Isler]

The only think he's accomplished is that I heard a nun was killed in retribution for his remarks. So who's gained ANYTHING by this?

[Corlyss_D]

my hope would be that radical Islam will die out, but that isn't likely to happen with the climate we find ourselves in exacerbated by the likes of George Bush.

So we should just go back to ignoring it like Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and the infamous Clinton did. Yeah. That was so successful.

[Fugu]

No, we should illegally invade every muslim country like Bush II did.

You're so predictable Corlyss.

[pizza]

No, we should illegally invade every muslim country like Bush II did.

You're so predictable Corlyss.

It's you who are predictable, Fugu. Corlyss never said anything of the kind but you can be depended upon to put words in the mouths of those who disagree with you and pretend they said it -- like the nonsense above which you invented and posted in her name.

[Fugu]

Well, if we can be sure of anything it would be that pizza cannot read. Go back and repeat 1st grade, dimbulb.

[pizza]

Well, if we can be sure of anything it would be that pizza cannot read. Go back and repeat 1st grade, dimbulb.

Why don't you show me where Corlyss said what you pretended she said. Otherwise, what was the point of making an absurd statement, followed by saying she's so predictable? What are you "predicting"? She didn't say it in 1st grade, did she?

[Fugu]

Why don't you stick your head in a microwave and let us watch it explode.

She blamed Clinton and previous administrations. Predictably, she supports Bush in his invasion and actions against Muslims now. If you can't read and follow logical thought, it ain't my fault dimbulb.

[pizza]

She blamed Clinton and previous administrations. Predictably, she supports Bush in his invasion and actions against Muslims now. If you can't read and follow logical thought, it ain't my fault dimbulb.

Blaming Clinton and supporting Bush now has nothing to do with your absurd statement "we should illegally invade every muslim country like Bush II did" and attributing it to Corlyss. Aside from the fact that nobody other than the Taliban seriously claimed that the Afghan invasion was illegal, there's nothing logical about predicting that Corlyss would therefore support the "illegal" invasion of "every muslim country" because she supports the two invasions that occurred. Try a course in Logic 101.

[Fugu]

No, you idiot, the word "illegal" is my own but it's also what many people have concluded after what Bush did to substantiate it and his ridiculous effort to tie 9-11 to the invasion. It is also commentary on what I know Corlyss would say about supporting the invasion of Iraq.

Are you so stupid that you can't see that? Use some of those brain cells you were created with. I know you're ancient pizza, but really you're becoming more senile by the day.

[pizza]

No, you idiot, the word "illegal" is my own but it's also what many people have concluded after what Bush did to substantiate it and his ridiculous effort to tie 9-11 to the invasion. It is also commentary on what I know Corlyss would say about supporting the invasion of Iraq.

Are you so stupid that you can't see that? Use some of those brain cells you were created with. I know you're ancient pizza, but really you're becoming more senile by the day.

The word "illegal" was yours. It may also be the word of many people but it wasn't Corlyss' word. The words "we should illegally invade every muslim country like Bush II did" are also your words but not Corlyss' words. [Never mind the Iraqi invasion occurred because Iraq failed to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1441 (a final opportunity for Iraq to rectify its failure to comply with prior UN Resolutions 660, 661, 678, 686, 687, 688, 707, 715, 986, and 1284).]

When you deliberately use your words to say something absurd, as you did here, and attribute them to yourself, that's fine. But when you attribute them to someone else, that's putting words the person never said in his mouth. That's precisely what you did here. All the backtracking and spinning in the world can't justify it.

Your purpose wasn't to make a statement of ideas; your purpose was to denigrate and ridicule Corlyss by pretending she said or would say the nonsense you said. That's how you operate.

If calling you on it makes me stupid or senile, I have an excuse. What's yours?